


this old house is quite the keeper

by Inky_Pens



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: ALL ABOARD THE FEELINGS TRAIN, F/M, it's going to be a sad ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:13:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25292197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inky_Pens/pseuds/Inky_Pens
Summary: In the end, when it mattered most, he had broken the crown that had cost them both so much, and she killed him for it.
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 23
Kudos: 46





	this old house is quite the keeper

Her bed was strangely cold, considering all she did these past weeks was lay in it. It felt too big, too plush. It felt like it would swallow her whole, suffocated by sumptuous bedding that smelled fragrant with herbs and flowers. But she always woke up, bleary-eyed at odd hours, sleep never coming more than an hour or two at a time, three if her body was feeling generous, four if her mind was feeling traitorous.

The nightmares had come immediately. Maybe they never stopped. Maybe they hadn’t stopped since she arrived in Faerie.

~~**_ooo_ ** ~~

In the bath, she sinks under the water, welcoming the burn that starts in her nose, igniting a furious protest down her throat. This is what should have happened in the Undersea. A mortal should sputter and gulp the saltwater into their lungs. A human should suffer the all-consuming panic of drowning. The fight to swim up, up, up, almost there but never close enough. Their tired legs, weighing heavy and sluggish while their lungs emptied of their final breaths. She should not have kissed Balekin.

She breaks the surface just as she did then, flailing limbs on the cold stone, rose petals kissing her skin as the bath water sloshes around her. The heaving sobs burn worse than the water ever did.

**~~_ooo_ ~~ **

Sometimes she thinks she see him in the corridors, leaning back against the wall with a knee bent and a foot propped up. It’s his signature casual arrogance, but instead of the sneer, his smile is soft and gentle. He’s missed her, too.

If she stops walking and holds her breath, she can keep the illusion seconds longer. His brow begins to lift and his lips part, he’s about to tell her something, and then—

The first time Roach walked through the mirage, she collapsed to the floor and sobbed.

**~~_ooo_ ~~ **

It wasn’t befitting of the queen to sit anywhere but the head of the table. This is what they whisper around her. But she leaves his seat empty, much to Madoc’s dismay. He scolds her for showing weakness, for reminding Elfhame of what they lost instead of fortifying what they gained.

While conversations drone around her, bargains struck without a word of assent from Her Majesty Jude Greenbriar of Elfhame, she often pictures him sitting there. No, not sitting. When did Cardan ever sit properly? He sprawled. Over everything. Long limbs askew, posture lazy, crown hanging on for dear life while the corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk when he caught her staring. He had always seemed so at ease in his own skin. Beaten and bruised, but comfortable. As if he knew who he was it birth and had carried the weight of it like an extra limb. But he had wanted to be better. He tried changing for his people and for her, though none of them deserved it, and least of all, her. In the end, when it mattered most, he had broken the crown that had cost them both so much, and she killed him for it.

~~**_ooo_ ** ~~

The first time she takes another lover to bed is also her last.

She would be lying if she didn’t admit his striking resemblance to her husband. Her king. The inky black hair. The lean, tall posture that reeked of arrogance and privilege. Is he an ambassador of something?

He has spent weeks culling her favor. Deftly steering away courtiers at parties and leaving flowers at her bedchamber door for days on end. The servants fight over who gets to take the unrequited spoils.

That night, he spends hours trying to bring her to orgasm. She would commend his efforts if she were of present mind, but she rarely speaks to anyone more than she’s required. Her body has ached for touch, but not this. This feels… wrong. It’s too soft and too hard all at once. It isn’t _him_. It doesn’t bloom heat or set her skin alight with tingles. He comes twice, and if he’s ashamed, he doesn’t show it. The glint in his eyes is reminiscent of a man who recognizes he is on the losing side of a challenge he’d already declared a victory.

He thrusts harder, faster. Then slower, gentler. But no rhythm matches the cadence her heart has kept since Cardan first took her to bed and told her he loved her.

The unnamed faerie takes hold of her chin and commands her to look at him. She does so, if nothing else because she hears his voice has taken a familiar edge and her curiosity peaks at how he thinks this will play out. “Come for me,” he murmurs. She feels the compulsion stifle the air around her, but it does not bathe her in its magic as it once did. She blinks at the audacity.

Jude wishes, for once, that Dain’s geas would lift in this moment alone, so she could feel something. Anything. _Anything._ She closes her eyes and pulls everything to the surface to remember Cardan as he was. Her hips jerk him out of her and turns the stupid boy over onto his back. He grins, a cat with the cream, as Jude sidles up his chest, dripping his own spill in her wake. In a rough grab of his hair, she forces his head immobile as she lowers herself onto his mouth. His tongue slips through her folds, his lips add a delicious suction, and from here she can close her eyes and pretend she is somewhere else. No longer a queen but a wife. A wife who says “I love you” back. A wife who found a way to save her husband.

The moan escapes her lips before she can call it back, and he flicks his tongue so proficiently that her traitorous body falls over the edge in violent shudder. His hands grip her hips, holding her to him and she rides out a long overdue release. It’s a shame she cannot smother him this way.

She settles for tightening her knees against his head, and when she flips them both over, the deadly crack of his neck between her thighs is drowned out by the angry cry she lets out.

~~**_ooo_ ** ~~

The fire starts in his rooms as it did before.

It burns their bedding and climbs up the four walls. She idly thinks of the Ghost, of Cardan training with him to be more agile, more sly-footed. She thinks of Cardan sneaking up on her, her heart pounding painfully in her chest, and she wishes she knew then that it wasn’t the scare that sent her heart racing.

The heat is just shy of unbearable. The smoke clouds her vision, stinging her eyes into tears that no longer fall. Not for him, not for herself anymore. And certainly not for Elfhame. The fire singes his wardrobe of ruffled frocks that smell like him. How many times had the Bomb found her in there, nestled in his clothes and finally, fitfully asleep?

Jude feels her skin start to sizzle. There is no cleansing breath to be had here. No sigh of relief, no gasp of despair. Her suffocation is of her own making, then, and now, and forever.

The halls are empty as she makes her way through the palace, taking a small satchel of the things most precious to her. _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland_. Their ring. Nightfell. His letters. Tokens she couldn’t bear to leave to ash. And if she walks slowly, it is because she wants to memorize the place that has haunted her for too long. It is not because she hopes the flames will lick at her heels and consume her with it. It is not because she hasn’t felt alive since the head rolled from the snake’s body, and she fears she may never feel anything again.

On the steps outside the palace is where she leaves her crown.

The cruel mortal, who betrayed a prince with a year and a day.

The wicked wife, who killed her king instead of rescuing him.

The queen of nothing, who burned it all to the ground.


End file.
